JOE REEVESALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

FRONT COVER

▸ ‘An Awesome Wave’ by Alt-J has an abstract painting of the Sundarbans on the front cover. This artwork is a convention for an alternative band as they often like to focus on the music, rather than the attention being on themselves. They also may be suggesting that their music is an art form. The album cover does not feature the band’s name as they may want to intrigue a larger audience to look at their product. This is also a convention of indie rock music as bands such as ‘Blur’ and ‘Jamie T’ do not include their name on the album covers linked.

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

FRONT COVER

▸ Another convention that Alt-J have followed in indie rock is that they have kept the front cover very minimalistic. The fact that they don’t include their name or photos of themselves on the front cover completely undermines Dyer’s ‘Star Theory’ as he suggests people buy the album because of the star, not the music, which is why people would buy this album. Also the minimalistic front cover could be representing the minimalistic style of music that they create as they do not use a cymbal in any of their songs.

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

FRONT COVER

▸ The front cover also gives the band a sense of brand identity as on their newest album ‘This Is All Yours’ they again did not include their name or images of themselves as they wanted to stick with their identity of not exposing themselves. In a sense, them not having a certain image on their front covers gives them an identity. However, they have adopted the ∆ triangle as their band logo, replacing the A in Alt-J with this. ∆lt-J. The delta is formed by pressing the alt key on a MacBook with the letter J. This is how they got a sense of identity.

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

BACK COVER

▸ The back cover again follows the completely minimalistic approach to the album. The tracks are listed in order of when they come on the album. The symbols on the back cover represent what are known as the ‘Interludes’. They are essentially just breaks in the album for the audience to just chill out completely. The back cover is again fairly conventional for indie bands as they have not included photos of themselves as they want people to focus on the tracks. Also as some of these tracks were released as singles many people may figure out who the band are from these.

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

BACK COVER

▸ This back cover follows many traditional conventions too as there is a barcode. All digipaks include one of these as it is to scan at checkout. They also have included their record label on the back cover to show that the production and promotion of the album is down to them. There is also copyrights and legal requirements on the bottom of the album. All albums, no matter what genre will have these features.

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

CD

▸ The disc itself also follows the minimalistic style of Alt-J. They have chosen to have a plain white disc with the track listing around the outside of the disc. They included the interlude symbol too. This follows the brand identity and house style from the back cover as they have the same typography and colour scheme. However, much like the back cover, some track titles seem to be bolder than others. This is a choice by the band but it seems to reduce the quality slightly. Still, the band haven’t included their name so some people may have been uninterested by this point and put the cd back.

ALT-J ‘AN AWESOME WAVE’ DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

INSIDE COVER

▸ The inside cover is completely different and unique. This is a photo of all four band members blended and faded into one photo. This gives the audience the sense that they all blend into one and that their music all links. The photo is taken in front of a white brick wall to follow the white minimalistic theme. This cover is actually a pull out with lyrics from all the songs in it. This is a good idea as the lead singers voice is very unique and it is often hard to work out what he is saying. This album digipak could be representing this as it is hard to work out who the band are if you have no idea of any of the singles or members. The only place that the band name appears is on the spine of the album but it is almost invisible as it is so small.